Micro-injection Moulding using an Exchangeable Microstructured Si Mould Insert

There is need for less expensive and rapid tooling for prototyping microfluidic components and systems in thermoplastics using microreplication technique such as microinjection moulding. This paper presents the adaptation of a conventional injection moulding process using a silicon mould insert. A dry-etched silicon mould insert with aspect ratio of 4 was produced by a two-step dry etching process. Cycloolefin copolymer (COC 5013 and 8007) fluidic chips of 560 mu m thickness comprising channels of 100 pm depth and width down to 25 pm were manufactured. The injection processing temperature and mould temperature were varied from 265 degrees C to 305 degrees C and 40 degrees C to 190 degrees C respectively to study their effect on the COC replicas.